The Hemingford Scandal

by Mary Nichols

  He heard the carriage door shut with a bang and risked a look. The girls were safely inside. He smiled and waited patiently until the rocking and swaying stopped and he knew they had finished dressing themselves in dry clothes. ‘Giles, take the coach back on to the road and wait for me,’ he said. ‘I am not going to forgo my dip.’

  ‘I never felt so mortified,’ Jane said, smoothing down her skirt and bundling the wet clothes under the seat. Somehow they would have to be dried. ‘We haven’t seen another traveller all day and then those two had to come along just at the wrong moment.’

  Anne laughed. ‘Your petticoat didn’t hide much.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Harry must have seen her and somehow that seemed a worse embarrassment than being ogled at by those two young men. She was unlikely to see them again, but Harry would be joining them again in two or three minutes and how could she look him in the eye?

  She turned in her seat to look out of the window just as Harry emerged from the water. He didn’t have a stitch on! Hurriedly she looked away, her face on fire. She had never seen a naked man before, not unless you counted marble statues, and she had not seen many of those. Pink and white flesh was another matter altogether. And though she tried to banish the picture from her mind, she could not forget his lithe body, the strong shoulders, narrow hips and his masculinity on show for all to see. Even as she was dragging her gaze away, he climbed the bank to pick up a towel and her mind registered that one leg was strong and well shaped, the other badly scarred. And it came to her, as if she had only then thought of it, that this man, this slightly less than perfect man, was the one she loved above all other. But it could not be; she had made that quite clear.

  He joined them in the coach, rubbing his head with the towel to dry his hair. ‘Clean and fit for the company of ladies again,’ he said, with no trace of embarrassment but then, she decided, he had probably been unaware that she had seen anything.

  They reached Skipton in the middle of the next day, where they were able to change the horses and eat a meal while they waited. They were glad they had fresh horses for the next long pull up to Ilkley Moor, where they arrived just as dusk was obscuring the landscape. And here they could find no welcoming tavern and were obliged to sleep in the coach. Harry offered to drive while Giles rested, but the old coachman would have none of it. ‘’Tis my job, Captain,’ he said stiffly. ‘And if anything were to happen to the two young ladies…’

  Harry laughed. ‘You do not trust me.’

  ‘I didn’t say that, Master Harry. Didn’t I teach you to drive myself? But it’s dark an’ these roads ain’t like Lincolnshire roads, now are they? You settle down and have a good sleep and tomorrow you may spell me if you’ve a mind to.’

  Harry gave in and climbed into the coach to sit beside Jane and the coach rumbled on through the darkness at no more than walking pace. Anne, in the opposite corner, shut her eyes and was soon dreaming, but Jane, acutely aware of Harry’s leg, clad in clean pantaloons, brushing against her muslin skirt, was wide awake. It was, she noted, his good leg and that brought on memories of his nakedness and even in the dark she felt the heat flare in her face.

  ‘It is a strange feeling,’ he whispered so as not to wake his sister, ‘sitting here with you like this. It is like being wrapped in a warm cocoon. There is no one else in the whole world, no outside influences, no thought for tomorrow, no memories of the past. It is as if time is standing still.’

  ‘But the sun will come up, day must surely follow night and we must emerge into the light.’ Her voice, too, was a whisper.

  ‘Ah, but by then we will have undergone a change. We will emerge as butterflies, more beautiful than the creatures who inhabited the cocoon.’

  ‘You do say some foolish things, Harry Hemingford.’

  ‘But don’t you feel it too, this change that is taking place between us?’

  ‘No.’ She would be strong. She must be strong. ‘Nothing has changed, except you grow more fanciful.’

  He laughed softly. ‘But that is part of it. This strong fancy I have to spread my wings and fly.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Straight into your heart. I want to see inside it. Is it a living, throbbing thing, or a stone? Passionate or cold? Can it love? Does it hate?’ His voice dropped to a thread of sound as he put his lips close to her ear. ‘Can it be governed?’

  She shivered and she knew he had noticed it. ‘Harry, please…’

  ‘Please what?’

  ‘Please do not roast me.’

  ‘Is that what I am doing? Now, I thought I was beguiling you, flirting a little, trying to make you smile, no harm in that, is there?’ Feelings he could not declare were hidden beneath flippancy.

  She did not answer, but turned to look out of the window. The sky was too overcast for moon and stars and there was nothing to see but black shapes and one spindly tree standing out on the distant horizon where it met the lighter sky.

  ‘Jane, you do know you cannot marry Allworthy, don’t you?’ he murmured in her ear.

  She turned to face him. ‘Why not?’

  ‘He will stifle you. You will not be able to breathe.’ He gave a grunt of wry humour. ‘Can you imagine him letting you bathe in your underwear in the river?’

  She allowed herself a small smile, but that was quickly overtaken by a feeling of acute embarrassment. ‘He would not take me to wild inaccessible country where there was no place to bathe or sleep.’

  ‘No.’ He gave a melodramatic sigh. ‘You would have no more exciting adventures. Everything would be pristine and tidy, everything exactly arranged for your—no, his convenience and comfort. Does that not fill you with sadness?’

  It did, but she would not admit it. ‘He is a careful man. I admire him for it.’

  ‘Admire him? Oh, dear, that is damning with faint praise, don’t you think? Where is love? Where is passion?’

  ‘It will come.’

  ‘Jane, my dear, forgive me, but I hate to see you throw yourself away…’

  ‘I am not throwing myself away and it is not your business.’ Her voice was rising and she noticed Anne stirring in her sleep.

  ‘Oh, but it is. I am your friend.’ He bent his head so that she could feel his warm breath on her cheek and it was turning her insides to fiery liquid. ‘You agreed we should be friends, did you not?’

  ‘Yes…’ Oh, he could be so maddening sometimes. Did he mean he only wanted to be her friend? Was that all she was to him? Then why had he kissed her in that all-too-telling way, making her forget herself? Did he glory in his power over her? Was he punishing her for sending him away, making her suffer as he had suffered?

  ‘Then, take a friend’s advice. Do not marry Allworthy.’

  ‘I shall marry whom I please, or not at all, as I please,’ she said, doing her best to sound severe, though this conversation was becoming so fraught, she did not know how she could bear it. She never knew from one moment to the next whether he was teasing or not, nor what he truly felt. If Anne was to be believed, he loved her, but he had not said so and she could not think that he had forgiven her for sending him away, condemning him to the life of a common soldier, putting him in the forefront of the battle so that he had been wounded. That lovely masculine body was scarred for life. She could not forgive herself, so how could he be expected to?

  ‘Where are we?’ It was Anne who spoke, her words cutting through the tension in the air, severing the invisible chain that had connected them, bringing them back to reality.

  ‘Going over Ilkley Moor,’ Harry said in his normal voice. ‘Very, very slowly.’

  ‘Oh. What were you two talking about?’

  ‘Butterflies,’ Jane said.

  ‘And having adventures,’ her brother put in. ‘Jane likes adventures, don’t you, Jane?’

  ‘Yes, as long as they are not too dangerous. I should not like to be in fear of my life.’

  Anne smiled. ‘You were not quarrelling, then?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Jane could no
t see his face, but she could imagine him grinning in the darkness. ‘We are the best of friends.’

  ‘Good.’

  The carriage rumbled on. The steady clop of the horses’ hooves, the crunch of the wheels and the jingle of harness were soporific and, as the conversation died, Jane’s eyes closed and she slept.

  Harry knew she had fallen asleep because her breathing, which had been ragged when they were talking, became a gentle flutter and her head lolled against his shoulder. Gently he eased his arm round her and made her more comfortable against him. He was dozing himself, savouring the faint scent of her hair beneath his chin, so he had no warning that anything was amiss. There was a jolt that woke all three, but before they could ask each other what it was, they heard the horses shriek and Giles give a great shout and then a rending sound and the coach rolled over. And then it began to slide, faster and faster, with the three people inside, flying about like dolls.

  It came to rest at last, with a final grinding and tearing, and then there was an awful silence. It seemed to last a long time, but could only have been seconds, before Harry came to his senses with Anne straddled across him and Jane beneath him. Both were unconscious. There were bits of wood and torn upholstery piled up around them. He pushed away as much debris as he could and carefully lifted Anne off him, then turned to kneel beside Jane. It was too dark to see anything; the only light came from a flickering flame, which he realised was caused by the oil from the broken coach lights catching fire to the under-growth. He could hear Giles yelling as he tried to reach them. ‘Master Harry! Oh, God, Miss Anne.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ he told Giles, though his injured thigh was hurting badly. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Bruises, nothing to speak of. What about the young ladies?’

  ‘Out cold. Can you wrench the door open and I’ll hand my sister out to you.’

  Giles’s big hand pulled at the door until it came off and then his head was outlined against the lighter sky. There was blood running down his face. Incongruously Harry noticed it would soon be dawn. ‘Here, take her from me,’ he said, extricating himself from Anne’s inert body. She moaned and came to her senses at that point. ‘Anne, dearest, can you move?’

  She sat up and rubbed her elbows. ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Giles is out there, he will help you out, while I see to Jane.’

  ‘Is she hurt?’

  ‘I don’t know. She hasn’t moved.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Bruises, no more.’ He attempted a smile. ‘I was stuck between the pair of you, cushioned my fall at your expense.’

  Helped by Giles, Anne scrambled out and over the wreckage and sat on the grass a little way off, too dazed to do anything. Harry dare not manhandle Jane until he knew what her injuries were. He flung out all the loose cushions, bonnets and broken seats and then climbed out. Feverishly he began pulling at the splintered wood at the side of the coach. Giles was beside himself, moaning that it was his fault, that he hadn’t seen the subsidence in the road until the horse stumbled into it. He should never have agreed to drive over the moors, he should have seen the trouble…

  Harry, shaken himself, told him to pull himself together and do something useful. ‘We’ve got to make room to get at her,’ he said, stamping out the flickering flames before they could spread. ‘Have you any tools?’

  ‘A few things in the boot.’

  ‘Fetch them.’

  The man was hobbling painfully as he went to obey. With the help of the tools, they dismantled one side of the coach and were able to lift Jane out and lay her on the grass. Harry knelt beside her. ‘Is she bad?’ Anne asked.

  ‘I can’t tell.’ He was busy feeling the back of Jane’s head. It had a lump on it the size of a hen’s egg. Her leg was twisted and swollen and was almost certainly broken, and she had cuts and bruises everywhere. Because she had been underneath as they fell she had sustained more injury than Anne, more than he had. How was he going to get her to safety?

  Giles, who had been scouting around, limped back to them. ‘One of the horses is dead, one has run off, the third will have to be put out of its misery, but the leader seems unhurt, though very skittish. Shall I ride him to fetch help?’

  ‘You’re hurt yourself, man.’

  ‘Oh, ’tis nothing. I can ride. We can’t be that far from the outskirts of Leeds.’

  Harry considered going himself, but he did not want to leave the girls. His medical skills were confined to knowing how to dress wounds sustained in battle, but that was better than nothing. Giles was hurt, for all he said he wasn’t and he needed help too. It was best if he went. ‘Then go. Find someone to bring a flat cart and a doctor. I’ll do what I can here.’

  Giles scrambled up the slope on his hands and knees and a minute or two later they heard the horse’s hooves clattering on the road and then fading into the distance. Harry found a flat piece of wood, part of the coach’s side panel and took it back to where Jane was lying with Anne kneeling beside her, crying. ‘She won’t come round,’ she sobbed. ‘Oh, I wish we had never come. Adventure she wanted, but not this. If she…’ She could not say the word. ‘Why won’t she come to her senses?’

  ‘I am glad she has not. I want to straighten that leg out and tie it to this piece of wood and it is going to hurt. She is better out of it.’ He turned to her. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t worry about me.’

  ‘Then do you think you can you make some bandages with petticoats? The luggage is somewhere about. And I heard the sound of a stream. We’ll need water. There is a flask in my valise, use that.’

  Glad to be busy, she went to obey and he began very gingerly and very gently to feel along Jane’s leg, afraid to move it for fear of making the break worse. By the time Anne returned, he had straightened the knee and slipped the board under it and, with the bandages she had brought, strapped the leg to it carefully but firmly. That done, he bathed her bruises and covered her with his coat, then sat back on his heels to look up at the road. How long would Giles be? He could do nothing about hauling Jane back to the road without help. He could hear the injured horse neighing.

  ‘Look after her,’ he told Anne, getting to his feet. ‘Don’t let her move.’

  She was alarmed. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To see to the horse. I won’t be long.’

  It took a search to find his gun, but he spotted it under a bush and went to the horse. It was halfway down the slope, trying vainly to get to its feet, though one leg was obviously broken. A single shot and it lay still.

  When he returned to the girls, he found Jane was beginning to regain consciousness. At first it was a mere whisper and then a moan and then a cry of pain. He fell on his knees beside her and stroked her brow. ‘Lie still, my love, lie very still. You have been hurt. Help is on its way.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The coach turned over.’

  ‘You? And Anne?’

  ‘Right as rain.’

  She looked up towards the road, thirty feet above them. It was an impossibly steep slope, scraped and littered with debris. ‘Did we come down there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then it is a miracle we weren’t all killed.’

  ‘Yes.’ He said nothing about his own feelings when he saw her lying so crumpled and still beneath him. For a brief second he had thought she was dead and he had wished for death too. She was the breath of life to him, and without her, he did not want to survive. Only minutes before they had been talking, railing at each other, bantering, pretending to misunderstand each other, when each knew perfectly well what was in the other’s heart. And all in a flash, they had ended up at the bottom of a ravine and she was in pain. He wished with all his heart he could suffer it for her. ‘Thank God we were not.’

  He had wrung a clean handkerchief out in water and he bathed her face and parched lips. She tried to move her head and winced with pain. ‘My head hurts.’

  ‘I know it does, my darling, and
I would do anything to have it otherwise, but lie still, please lie still. Giles has gone for help.’

  He sat and held her hand, willing his strength into her, willing her to live, while Anne, too distraught to sit still, wandered about picking up their belongings and making a little heap of them. It was fully daylight now and they could easily see the extent of the accident. The coach had gouged a long slit from the road to the bottom of the slope, breaking down small trees and bushes in its path until its remains came to rest not far from the banks of a small stream. Anne fetched more water from it and Harry dribbled a little of it into Jane’s mouth.

  She slipped in and out of consciousness as the hours passed. Sometimes she muttered in delirium, sometimes she moaned quietly, and sometimes, which to Harry was almost worse, she was so silent he had to keep checking she was still breathing. ‘God keep her safe,’ he murmured, lifting her hand to his cheek. It was so cold, it frightened him.

  ‘How long will they be?’ Anne asked him. ‘Suppose something has happened to Giles? He was hurt, he might have passed out or fallen off the horse, or lost his way.’

  He didn’t want to think of that possibility. Without help, he could not get Jane to the top of that slope. ‘Can you climb up there?’ he asked.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Then go and see if anyone is coming.’

  He watched her struggling to find her footing, but she managed it in the end and disappeared from his sight. He looked down at Jane. Her face was deathly pale. ‘I am sorry, so very, very sorry, my love,’ he murmured. ‘It is all my fault, all of it. I should not have brought you here. I should have left you with your comfortable, cosy life, left you to a man who has everything to give you…’ He grimaced. ‘I was right when I said I was unworthy, wasn’t I?’

  ‘Did you say that?’ she murmured. ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Jane, oh, Jane.’

  They heard the sound of wheels and the clop of horses’ hooves and then Anne was outlined against the sky at the top of the slope. ‘They’re here. Help is here, my love.’